When Greed Outweighs Good Niva Cohen, ’23

in attacks on women’s autonomy, expression, and physical safety.

The Taliban is responsible for human rights violations against women, signifying a loss of democracy and freedom in Afghanistan. The Taliban works to dismantle modes of dissent and free expression, especially when dissent comes from women. Dissent is often seen as the hallmark of a free society, so the Taliban’s violent efforts to whittle away voices of opposition is a breach of freedom and civil liberties.

1 “What Is the Taliban?” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan. 2 “A Historical Timeline of Afghanistan,” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 4 May 2011, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/asia-jan-june11-timeline-afghanistan. 3 “What Is the Taliban?” Council on Foreign Relations. Heather Barr, “For Afghan Women, the Frightening Return of ‘Vice and Virtue’,” Human Rights Watch, 4 Oct. 2021, https:// www.hrw.org/news/2021/09/29/afghan-women-frightening-return-vice-and-virtue. 4 “Afghanistan: Taliban Deprive Women of Livelihoods, Identity.” Human Rights Watch, 18 Jan. 2022, https://www.hrw. org/news/2022/01/18/afghanistan-taliban-deprive-women-livelihoods-identity#. 5 “What Is the Taliban?” 6 Heather Barr. 7 Alasdair Pal, “Taliban Replaces Women’s Ministry with Ministry of Virtue and Vice,” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 17 Sept. 2021, https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taliban-replaces-womens-ministry-with-ministry-virtue-vice-2021-09-17/. 8 David Zucchino and Yaqoob Akbary, “Threatened and Beaten, Afghan Women Defy Taliban with Protests,” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Jan. 2022, https://www.nytimes. com/2022/01/24/world/asia/afghan-women-taliban-protests.html. 9 “Afghanistan: Taliban Deprive Women of Livelihoods, Identity.” 10 Anna P. Kambhampaty, “#Donottouchmyclothes: Afghan Women Protest Taliban Restrictions on Rights,” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Sept. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/29/style/donottouchmyclothes-afghan-women-protest-taliban.html. 11 “Afghanistan: Freedom in the World 2021 Country Report,” Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/country/afghanistan/ freedom-world/2021.

When Greed Outweighs Good

Niva Cohen, ’23

Globalism has brought a plethora of new opportunities for economic success and cooperation, but there’s a catch to an increasingly connected world: mutual responsibility. Democracies that pick and choose the nature of their relationships with other countries neglect their values in favor of their self-interests. To engage in the global community economically but not socially, to ignore human rights violations because they are inconvenient, is selfish, irresponsible, and hypocritical. Technology has emerged at the center of conversations about global markets because it is always evolving and universally useful. Highfunctioning artificial intelligence, facial identification, and surveillance equipment are among the fastest developing. Policymakers, governments, and human rights activists debate how to use these technologies effectively. In placing financial success and security above liberty and human rights, the Israeli spyware program Pegasus has failed to strike a crucial balance: reaping the benefits of such powerful software without letting it exploit democratic values.

NSO Group, an Israeli company comprised of former cyberspies, designed Pegasus to insidiously infect mobile devices, leaving very little trace. Their software is almost impossible to defend against, as it can infiltrate phones without the users having to click on a mysterious-looking link.1 In 2019, Pegasus infected 1400 phones through WhatsApp simply by placing a call, even if the target did not answer it.2 Once “inside” the device, Pegasus can steal photos, videos, GPS information, communications, and passwords; it can even spy on the target by operating the phone’s camera and microphone. NSO sells this spyware technology to foreign governments – Mexico, India, and Hungary, for example – so that they can track terrorists, granting Pegasus software licenses that the Israeli Defense Ministry must also approve. The Ministry claims that it “approves the export of cyber products exclusively… for the purpose of preventing and investigating crime and counterterrorism.”3 As robust as Pegasus’s infection mechanisms are now, the software is always improving, finding newer and stealthier ways into phones through all apps.

Despite NSO’s purported goals, its technology has enabled authoritarian countries to surveil threats. Concerns about Pegasus spiked when investigators found an infection on Jamal Khashoggi’s wife’s phone. Saudi Arabian journalist Khashoggi was assassinated in Istanbul for his unfavorable reporting of his native government. The Pegasus Project reasons that the government could have tracked Khashoggi’s movement and mentality by listening to Pegasus-recorded phone calls between him and his wife. To evaluate the extent of spyware misuse, a group of journalists established the Pegasus Project. They compiled a list of 50,000 numbers in more than 50 authoritarian countries being tracked through

the software. 15,000 – a plurality – are in Mexico, while others are in Middle Eastern countries (United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain) and Asia (India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan). The Pegasus Project has identified 1,000 of those 50,000; among them are businesspeople, human rights activists, politicians, and journalists – people essential to checking and exposing authoritarianism.4 Indeed, those who play these roles in unstable countries pose no terrorist threat to civilians. The only people that they threaten are the powerful and corrupt perpetuating the flaws in their societies.

Although NSO created Pegasus to protect democracies against terrorism, it has endangered them and those who fight for them. Reporters cannot investigate corruption, human rights organizations cannot provide covert aid, and politicians cannot mobilize the “good guys” to oust dictatorial powers without risking their lives: Pegasus is simply too powerful and widespread to take privacy for granted. Timothy Summers, a former cybersecurity engineer for the American government, notes that “there’s not anything wrong with building technologies that allow you to collect data… But humanity is not in a place where we can have that much power just accessible to anybody.”5 NSO is selling its product to countries that do not have the mechanisms to use it responsibly, even if they wanted to do so. Guillermo Valdes Castellano of the Mexican intelligence agency CISEN agrees that “Pegasus is very useful for fighting organized crime, but the total lack of checks and balances [in Mexico] means it easily ends up in private hands and is used for political and personal gain.”6 As a result, Pegasus has infected the phones of multiple Mexican journalists who have exposed corruption and cartels. Even when government surveillance does not result in deaths or imprisonment, fear of it is enough to dissuade whistleblowers and activists from taking risks. NSO clients have weaponized Pegasus to suppress pro-human rights and pro-democracy opposition.

NSO has turned a blind eye to this weaponization, despite claims to the contrary. The company denied the Pegasus Project’s findings and deflected responsibility for any misuse that had occurred, saying that it has no control over or insight into how its clients use Pegasus once they have purchased it.7 But if NSO lacks access to this user information, it is by design, a feature of NSO’s policy that values customers’ security over activists’.8 While claiming helplessness, the company also insists that it has done its part to punish those abusing Pegasus. Chief executive Shalev Hulio cited two instances during the past year when NSO ended relations with clients due to human rights concerns but refused to disclose what countries or causes were involved.9 Even if the company did terminate these relationships, they are mere drops in the bucket of surveillance. By ignoring clients’ censorship and continuing to sell spyware to them, NSO is selfishly contradicting the democratic causes it professes to promote.

As much blame as Pegasus deserves, it is only a symptom of a far-reaching problem. At least 65 countries sell spyware, and the most successful companies have centers in democratic nations.10 What follows is the inevitable clash between financial and moral optimization. Arguably, there are cases in which the U.S. and its allies must engage with human rights abusers – like China – but it is questionable whether selling spyware is one of them. As if being a bystander were not bad enough, democracies enable Although NSO created Pegasus to protect human rights abuse abroad by giving governments the tools to perpetuate it. People blame China for selling democracies against technologies to malicious authoritarians, terrorism, it has endangered but they are likely throwing stones them and those who fight for from glass houses. It is time to look in them. the mirror and realize that some of the biggest threats to democratic ideals come from democracies themselves. There is a path that NSO can take if they wish to be more responsible. NSO officials are right to point to Pegasus’s benefits. It has helped countries prevent terrorist attacks and catch human traffickers. No one is suggesting that NSO stop selling spyware altogether – there is a place for it in well-meaning, principled societies. But the company must halt sales temporarily until there are more comprehensive bylaws that ensure human rights protection.11 It must take responsibility for how its software is used. It must require transparency among its clients, subpoena anyone suspected of human rights abuse, and revoke licenses when necessary. The democratic hosts overseeing spyware sales also have a part to play. They must create committees to consider licenses more seriously and investigate how customers might misuse technology.12 Though they benefit financially from sales, it is their responsibility to put human rights first. NSO has endangered challengers to authoritarianism, and some of that damage is irreparable. There is still time, though, for the company to change its tune and make more responsible choices. If it refuses to do so of its own volition, Israel should demand it. Yes, democracies value free markets and innovation, but sometimes, other values take precedence. Yes, catching terrorists is essential to security, but privacy is necessary to democracy and freedom. The global community must learn to strike these balances now, because Pegasus only marks the beginning. Other high-functioning technologies will emerge, and without regulations, they will surely land in the hands of authoritarians determined to exploit them. If democracies really care about their founding ideals, they will step in now, before it is too late. 1 Souad Mekhennet, Dana Priest, and Craig Timberg, “Private Israeli Spyware Used to Hack Cellphones of Journalists, Activists Worldwide,” The Washington Post, WP Company, July 19, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2021/ nso-spyware-pegasus-cellphones/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3. 2 Sam Cutler and David Pegg, “What Is Pegasus Spyware and How does it Hack Phoones?,” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, July 18, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/ jul/18/what-is-pegasus-spyware-and-how-does-it-hack-phones. 3 Mekhennet, Priest, and Timberg.